Chapter Text
The WAGs’ box always smells faintly of champagne and expensive perfume, a heady mix that clings to the plush carpet and the soft leather of the curved cream sofas no matter how well they clean it. Imogen stands at the railing with Sloane, hip cocked, one manicured hand wrapped round the stem of her flute, and watches the pre-game spectacle flare to life below them. The arena lights dim to a theatrical green-blue, lasers slicing through artificial mist as the ice glows like something enchanted. Music pulses up through the glass, bass reverberating in her ribs.
She’s been coming here for years now – long enough that the novelty has worn thin – but she still enjoys this part: the hush before the storm, the electricity that skims across the surface of the rink before Garrick skates out and the crowd loses its collective mind.
And the rest of them, but whatever.
It’s early in the season and a midweek game, so the box is quieter than usual. No cluster of girlfriends in designer heels posing for selfies, no social media managers hovering like anxious sparrows, no children. Just her and Sloane, both draped artfully against the railing like they own the place – which, frankly, they might as well. Imogen’s reflection ghosts faintly in the glass behind them: sharp cheekbones, pink hair falling sleek and straight down her back, lipstick immaculate. She looks every inch the composed hockey WAG, and she knows it.
The door clicks open behind them.
Imogen doesn’t turn straight away – she assumes it’s catering – but then she hears Soleil’s warm, efficient voice. Soleil, who has been with the team longer than Garrick, longer than most of the players, longer even than Imogen has been orbiting this frozen circus. Soleil doesn’t escort just anyone.
“I’ll leave you here, Ms Sorrengail.”
Imogen pivots then, eyebrow already arching, curiosity piqued despite herself.
The woman who steps into the suite is… not what she expects. Petite, almost delicate-looking, dressed in simple black – no flashy labels screaming for attention – with brunette hair that falls in soft waves to her shoulders before fading into silver at the tips. It’s subtle, but striking. Her hazel eyes are wide as she takes in the space: the floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking centre ice, the private bar stocked with top-shelf everything, the platters of artfully arranged canapés, the flat-screen mounted on the wall already looping pre-game stats. The leather seating arranged in conversational clusters. The discreet heating vents keeping the chill of the rink at bay.
Imogen remembers her first time up here – the way it felt like stepping into another world, one suspended above the roar and the sweat and the violence of the game. She’d pretended she wasn’t impressed. She’d failed.
This girl doesn’t pretend. She looks like she’s trying not to stare.
She offers them a small, slightly awkward half-wave. “Hi, I’m Violet. You must be Imogen and Sloane.”
Imogen shares a look with Sloane. Years of friendship have honed their silent communication into an art form. One flick of Sloane’s perfectly lined eyes says everything: Who the fuck is this?
Imogen lifts one perfectly sculpted brow in reply: No idea. But Soleil brought her.
She turns back to the newcomer, schooling her features into polite neutrality. “I’m Imogen. This is Sloane.” She pauses, searching for a tactful way to ask why, exactly, a random woman has been personally delivered into their sanctum. See? She can be nice. She’s grown.
She doesn’t get the chance.
Sloane, predictably, barrels in. “How the fuck did you get into the WAGs’ box? You’re not a crazy superfan, are you?”
Imogen closes her eyes briefly. Subtlety has never been Sloane’s strength.
But Violet just blushes. Actually blushes. A faint pink dusts her cheeks and she ducks her chin slightly, and it’s so uncalculated it catches Imogen off guard.
“No, not a crazy superfan. In fact, I barely know anything about hockey.” She gives a small, self-deprecating laugh. “But I’m here because I am one. A WAG, I mean.”
She looks faintly embarrassed by the term.
Imogen’s mind moves fast. She runs through the roster automatically – who’s single, who’s cheating, who’s in something messy and undefined. Garrick tells her everything. He pretends he doesn’t gossip, but he absolutely does, and she listens like it’s a competitive sport. There hasn’t been a whisper of a new girlfriend serious enough to warrant box access.
Everyone’s got someone on the side at least.
Well. Except Xaden.
But that’s–
Sloane, yet again, beats her to it. “For who?!”
Violet blinks, as if surprised by the intensity. “Oh. Xaden? Xaden Riorson?” She says it like a question, like maybe they wouldn’t recognise the name of the most famous captain in the NHL, the brooding face plastered across half the sports magazines in Britain and North America.
Imogen actually laughs once, sharp and disbelieving. Of course she knows Xaden Riorson. Everyone does. Six foot three of dark, tattooed intensity. Captain. Enigma. Absolute menace on the ice. Serial non-committer off it.
Her boyfriend’s captain, as well as his best friend of over twenty years.
Yeah, she knows Xaden Riorson.
Violet smiles at them, tentative but hopeful. “Xaden said I should come hang with you guys.”
And that’s when it properly lands.
Imogen straightens, setting her champagne down with deliberate care. “Right,” she says slowly, composure snapping back into place like a well-fitted glove. “Yes. Of course. Sorry. We’re just surprised because we had absolutely no idea you even existed, and Xaden has literally never brought a girl up here.”
Not that they haven’t tried to get up here anyway, but this has always been the line for Xaden – thankfully for her.
So she watches Violet carefully as she says it, looking for cracks. For artifice. For the calculating gleam she’s come to expect from women who try to attach themselves to men like Xaden.
Instead, Violet blushes again. “Yes, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind.”
Whirlwind. Interesting choice of word.
Imogen studies her properly now. She’s pretty – not in the overdone, influencer way that populates most of these boxes – but in a softer, almost academic way. There’s intelligence in her eyes. A kind of wary resilience. She doesn’t look like someone dazzled by fame. She looks like someone slightly annoyed to be dazzled at all.
Then Violet seems to gather herself, shoulders straightening, and a brighter smile blooms across her face. “But he’s told me all about you guys! How proud he is of your win last month in court, Imogen – but also the charity gala? He said you practically bullied half the city’s elite into donating.”
Imogen can’t stop the pleased flicker that sparks in her chest. “It wasn’t bullying,” she says airily. “It was strategic persuasion.”
“And,” Violet continues, turning to Sloane, almost conspiratorally. “He admitted how much he secretly loves doing your videos. I still can’t believe you got him to do that ‘Of course I’m the captain’ TikTok trend. The one where he had to point at himself every time it said something dramatic?”
Sloane’s jaw actually drops. “He said he liked that?”
Violet nods earnestly. “He said you’re terrifying, but in a fun way.”
Imogen feels something shift, subtle but undeniable. Xaden doesn’t talk about people with just anyone. Not really. He grunts. He deflects. He withholds. The idea of him recounting Sloane’s TikTok tyranny and praising Imogen’s gala win… that’s new.
She folds her arms, studying Violet with renewed interest.
Maybe this isn’t some puck bunny who slipped past security. Maybe this is something else entirely.
God help them.
“Well,” Imogen says, a slow, sly smile curling at the corner of her mouth, “in that case, Ms Sorrengail, you’d better tell us how exactly you managed to tame the most emotionally unavailable man in professional hockey.”
Before Violet can answer Imogen’s question about taming Xaden Riorson – which, frankly, sounds like the sort of task that should require protective gloves and a waiver – Sloane makes a sharp noise that can only be described as magpie spotting something shiny.
“YO – shit. Nice bling.”
Imogen barely has time to register the flash of light before Sloane lunges forward and physically grabs Violet’s left hand. Not gently. Not delicately. Just full gremlin energy.
“Oi!” Imogen snaps, half scandalised, half delighted. “We do not maul the guests.”
But Sloane is already turning Violet’s hand under the lights, eyes wide. The ring catches the glare from the rink below and fractures it into shards of brilliance. It’s not gaudy – which somehow makes it worse. A clean, viciously elegant emerald-cut diamond set on a platinum band, understated in that way only obscene amounts of money can be.
“Hey – what the fuck is this?” Sloane demands. “And who is it from?”
Violet flushes again, that soft pink blooming up her neck. She tries – unsuccessfully – to tug her hand back. “Xaden chose it.”
Imogen blinks.
Sloane blinks.
They turn to each other in perfect synchronicity, like a well-rehearsed double act.
“Xaden?” Sloane says.
“Xaden Riorson?” Imogen adds.
“Excuse me, what the fuck?”
“Our Xaden?” Imogen presses, even though there are probably very few other Xaden’s in the world, but only one who scowls like he was carved from sin and bad decisions and does not buy rings.
Bodhi surely would have told her.
But Violet nods, looking faintly overwhelmed.
Imogen steps forward, peering closer at the ring, mind racing. “Right,” she says briskly. “First of all, don’t wear that on that hand. It looks like you’re engaged, which would be preposterous.”
Preposterous. Absurd. Comically unlikely. Xaden Riorson does not propose. He barely texts back. Never mind with someone he’s only just met.
“Oh – no, no,” Violet says quickly. “We’re not engaged.”
Sloane exhales dramatically. “Phew. Thank God. I mean, you’re still walking around with, what, a quarter of a million dollars on your finger, but at least it’s not–”
“No, no,” Violet interrupts softly. “We’re married.”
There’s a moment where the world simply… stalls.
Below them, the team skates onto the ice to a roar of cheers, pyrotechnics flaring. The glass vibrates with the force of it.
Inside the box, silence.
Sloane continues talking for a full two seconds on autopilot. “–because if Xaden got married before us I would actually lose my mind, can you imagine, like Dain – never mind Garrick – would never let us hear the end of–”
She stops.
“WAIT. What?”
Imogen feels as though someone has gently but firmly smacked her across the face with a silk glove. Married. As in legally bound. As in paperwork. As in rings and vows and… Xaden.
She stares at Violet. “I’m sorry,” she says slowly, voice very calm in that way that suggests it absolutely isn’t. “Girl. When did you meet? Six minutes ago?”
“Uh,” Violet says, looking sheepish now. “Six weeks, actually.”
Six.
Weeks.
Imogen’s brain short-circuits. Six weeks is not a relationship. Six weeks is a trial subscription. Six weeks is the amount of time it takes Xaden to decide whether he even likes a new brand of protein powder. And also the amount of time that…
Sloane gasps. “Oh my God. Did you baby trap him? Are you knocked up?”
Imogen closes her eyes briefly. There it is.
Violet goes scarlet. Properly scarlet this time. Which, annoyingly, makes her look even more genuine. “No! No, I’m not – I mean – no.”
Imogen watches her carefully. There’s a flicker there, though. Not guilt. Not panic. Something softer. Like she’s remembering something intimate. She files that away for later.
Sloane is pacing now, hands flapping. “WAIT. What do you mean Xaden stole a wedding from us? Do you have any idea how many dresses I own that have never seen the light of day? I have a closet full. A curated, colour-coded, seasonally appropriate closet.”
That part, at least, is true. Imogen has seen it.
It’s terrifying.
“I know we only just met,” Sloane barrels on, grabbing Violet’s hands again, “but we’ll throw you a wedding shower. Just a small one.”
Imogen snorts aloud.
There is nothing small about Sloane Mairi. Nothing. Her idea of “low-key” involves a live band and a bespoke cocktail menu.
“The fuck do you mean we will?” Imogen cuts in, staring at Sloane. “We don’t even know how old she is, what she does, how they met… although, I bet Felix would let us hire the Gallery for it.”
There’s a beat.
Violet blinks at them. “Oh. You mean like… you want to be friends?”
The way she says it – tentative, hopeful, like she hasn’t quite decided whether she’s allowed to assume that – does something irritating to Imogen’s chest.
Imogen folds her arms, studying her again. Six weeks. Married. To Xaden. And yet she’s not smug. Not territorial. Not flashing the ring like a trophy. She looks… slightly overwhelmed. A bit out of her depth. But steady. Like she’s chosen this chaos and is determined to stand in it.
Sloane beams at her. “Well yeah. If you’re going to be around.”
Imogen exhales slowly through her nose, recalibrating everything she thought she knew about tonight. About Xaden. About the neat little ecosystem of their WAG box.
Xaden Riorson, married in six weeks. To a woman who barely knows hockey. Who blushes when teased. Who apparently knows about Imogen’s charity win and Sloane’s TikTok tyranny because he told her.
He told her.
That might be the most unhinged part of all.
Imogen tilts her head, a slow, assessing smile curving her lips. “Alright, Mrs Riorson,” she says, testing the name, watching Violet’s reaction closely. “You’ve got approximately one period to convince me this isn’t some elaborate fever dream.”
Below them, Xaden skates past centre ice, captain’s C stark against his chest. As if sensing the scrutiny, he glances up towards the box.
And when his gaze finds Violet, it softens.
Not a lot. Just enough.
Imogen feels her disbelief crack, just slightly, at the edges.
Oh.
Oh, this might actually be real.
*****
Violet feels it before she fully understands it – the way Xaden’s gaze lifts instinctively towards the box, as if drawn by some invisible tether, and the way it finds her without hesitation. The arena is deafening, all flashing lights and pounding music and the scrape of blades against ice, but when his eyes lock onto hers the noise seems to recede to a distant hum.
There is something achingly familiar in the set of his shoulders even beneath the bulk of his jersey, something private in the faint softening of his expression that no one else would notice unless they knew him the way she does – no matter how long she’s known him in reality, something in their souls is connected, just like all the fated mates that she disbelievingly reads about in her fantasy novels.
And suddenly she is not in a luxury box suspended above centre ice, clutching the railing with a diamond heavy on her finger while two formidable women assess her like a newly acquired curiosity. She is back in June, in a town so small it barely clings to the map, sitting in a coffee shop that smells of cinnamon and roasted beans and possibility, willing herself to remember how to write.
It had been meant to be an inspired decision, that retreat. A deliberate removal from the noise of her life, from deadlines and well-meaning family and the quiet grief that still lingered like a bruise beneath her ribs whenever she thought too long about life and all it had taken from her, especially in the cold winter months.
But that was far away now – June had wrapped the town in warmth without tipping into suffocation, sunlight spilling lazily across cobbled streets, flowers tumbling from window boxes in reckless colour. It should have been perfect. She had chosen the café – Parapet Coffee, a name she had immediately adored – because its décor was unapologetically witchy, all dried lavender bundles and shelves of dog-eared fantasy novels, tiny dragon figurines perched between jars of locally roasted beans. It felt like somewhere stories might loosen their grip and tumble willingly onto the page.
Gods, she could do with the help.
And yet, she had stared at her laptop for a solid hour, cursor blinking in quiet mockery. The chapter refused to form. Her characters, usually so chatty in her mind, had fallen stubbornly silent despite the last few months of research. She had wrapped her hands around her lavender latte, inhaling its floral sweetness, and tried to summon inspiration through sheer force of longing. By the time she admitted defeat, the mug was only half empty and entirely cold.
A bathroom break, she had reasoned. A stretch. Another lavender latte – this one to be drunk hot.
She had risen, fingers curled around the chilled ceramic, and that was when the universe had quite literally collided with her.
The impact had been abrupt, a solid body crashing into hers, and then there was cold – shockingly cold – as both drinks cascaded down the front of her oversized tee. She had gasped, breath stolen more from surprise than temperature, and then a low, gruff voice had cut through the chaos.
“What the fuck.”
She had looked up, prepared to demand an apology, to bristle, to defend herself if necessary – and instead found herself staring into the most beautiful dark eyes she had ever seen, almost black but threaded with gold flecks that caught the light like embers. For a suspended heartbeat the world had gone utterly silent, the café fading to a blur around the edges. There had been something arresting about him, something coiled and watchful, as though he carried shadows and storms beneath his skin.
It was electric, light lightning was stuttering between them, trying to forge a connection.
Eventually, blessedly, he had blinked.
“I’m so sorry,” he’d said, the edge in his voice softening. “Let me buy you another one.”
She had glanced down at her sodden shirt, at the iced coffee seeping into cotton, and managed a small, flustered laugh. “Oh, don’t worry. I was going to get a new one anyway. This one was ancient.”
He had studied her as though weighing that answer, then shrugged. “It’s the least I can do. What will it be?”
“Lavender latte,” she’d admitted, cheeks warming for reasons entirely unrelated to the spilled drink.
“Of course,” he’d replied, as though that told him something important. “I’m Xaden, by the way.”
“Violet.”
He had repeated it back in that low, gravelly timbre, almost a purr. “Violet.” As if he were testing the shape of it.
As if it might mean something.
God, this felt exactly like one of her books.
When he turned to order, she became abruptly aware of the way her tee clung to her small frame, translucent in places she would rather it not be. Mortification prickled up her spine. Salvation arrived in the form of a barista with a name tag that read Emery, who approached with sympathetic eyes and a folded black T-shirt emblazoned with Parapet Coffee in curling white script. Violet had taken it gratefully, murmuring thanks, slipping into the bathroom to change. The replacement was oversized – mercifully so – hanging loose and comfortable, as though someone had intuited her preference for oversized fabric that felt like armour. Perhaps it was simply the only spare they had. Either way, she had emerged feeling steadier.
She had heard him before she saw him again – a rich, unguarded laugh. It startled her. The man who had sworn under his breath moments earlier now stood at the counter, smiling easily at the barista with vivid purple hair, whose name she had learned from frequenting the cafe for the last few weeks was Heaton, and who used they/them pronouns. Xaden seemed familiar with them, leaning in with casual confidence, and Violet had found herself wondering how she had never noticed him before if he was a regular.
When he returned with their drinks and settled opposite her, she asked as much.
“I drive through here on occasion,” he’d said with a shrug. “Got to know the staff.”
There had been something deliberately vague about it, but she had let it slide. They had talked instead. About her writing – which she confessed to in a rush, cheeks pink, admitting she penned sports romance – and about his amused declaration that he happened to be “a bit of an expert on hockey”.
“Oh? Like a superfan?” she had teased.
“…Sure,” he’d said, and even then she had sensed the cagey undercurrent beneath the word.
Coffee had stretched into hours. Hours into dinner at a small restaurant down the street where fairy lights tangled in the eaves. Conversation had flowed with an ease that unsettled her in its intensity. At their cars, beneath a sky bruised with the onset of dusk, he had rubbed the back of his neck and said, “I know we just met, and this is crazy, but–”
“Please don’t say here’s my number and call me maybe,” she had blurted, horrified and amused all at once.
He had frowned. “What?”
She had flushed. “Never mind. What were you going to say?”
He had invited her back to his cabin, nestled in the foot of the mountains, but far away from any snow – especially in June.
It should have been reckless. It was reckless. But there had been something in his eyes – not just desire, though that burned bright enough, but a quiet, aching loneliness that mirrored her own. She had gone. And after that night, she had simply… not left.
Days blurred into weeks. She wrote more in that cabin than she had in the previous year combined, words pouring from her as though some internal dam had cracked. He cooked with surprising competence, moved through the small kitchen with broad shoulders and tattooed forearms on display, and she would sit at the wooden table with her laptop, stealing glances at him over the screen. He trained in the mornings, muscles straining, breath controlled, and she wrote in the afternoons, and they ate together in the evenings, laughter echoing against timber walls, and the intimacy that threaded between them was as consuming as it was tender.
He confessed a few days in that he was not merely a hockey enthusiast, that he played hockey, but that it was the off season and he’d rather not talk about it. Then he’d distracted her with his tongue and his lips all over her, and she’d almost forgotten that his job involved death on ice.
Almost.
It was only when she googled his name that night – curiosity finally winning – that the truth crystallised. He was Xaden Riorson. Captain. Champion. A name she recognised from headlines she had once avoided because they dragged old memories of Brennan’s tragic time on the ice too sharply to the surface. She had built a career writing sports romance with meticulous research, yet she had never ventured into hockey; any winter sport had felt too heavy with ghosts. And yet here she was, wrapped in the quiet warmth of a cabin with one of its brightest stars, her defences dissolving with alarming speed.
He told her he had been driving to the family cabin when he stopped at Parapet Coffee. With an amused grin, he confessed that his family thought he was mad for not flying – but he hated planes. “Best decision I ever made,” he’d said lightly, brushing his thumb along her jaw.
When the heat of the summer began to wane and reality loomed, he had joked that they should get married.
She had laughed.
He hadn’t.
The registry office in town had been small and sunlit, the clerk kind-eyed and unassuming. There had been no grand declarations, no spectacle. Just vows spoken quietly, fingers intertwined, a sense of inevitability settling over them like a blessing.
And then pre-season had called him back.
They had returned to the city with rings on their fingers and no intention of telling anyone.
Not yet.
Yet when he went back for pre-season training, he did it with a plain platinum band on his finger and an expression that dares anyone to question it. She remembers watching him lace his boots that first morning back in the city, sunlight cutting across the kitchen island of his penthouse, glinting off the ring as though it were something sacred. He’d caught her staring and lifted his hand deliberately, brushing his knuckles beneath her chin.
“Problem, Mrs Riorson?”
She had shaken her head, heart too full for words, and thought how strange it was that something so small could feel so monumental.
There was little fanfare between them, quietly adapting to life together in Xaden’s penthouse apartment – her stuff beginning to weave its way in, additions of books, borrowed t-shirts that never stayed on for long – an unspoken hush between them. And then, one afternoon, without preamble, he had simply driven her to her old condo.
She remembers the way he’d leaned back in the driver’s seat, sunglasses on, fingers drumming against the steering wheel. “Pack what you want,” he’d said. “We’ll sort the rest.”
She had laughed, assuming he meant a suitcase.
He had not meant a suitcase. Instead, he wanted her – all of her – her whole life and her whole world, blending with his.
Impromptu moving day unfolded like a small-scale invasion. Xaden surveying her living room – neat, compact, entirely functional – and then turning to the first shelf of books.
Then the second.
Then the third.
“Violet,” he had said slowly, staring at the towering stacks lining the hallway. “Why do you own an entire library?”
She had crossed her arms defensively. “I’m a writer.”
“That’s not the point. These aren’t even yours.”
It takes five trips. Five. He carried box after box down to his car, muscles straining, tattoos flexing, muttering under his breath about structural integrity and load-bearing floors. She had tried not to laugh, and tried not to melt at the quiet devotion of it. No complaint, not really. Just bafflement and a faint, amused horror at the sheer volume of paper she refuses to part with.
When he stepped into his penthouse that evening after a mandatory PR day, it had looked different already, as though the merging of their belongings had shifted its gravity. The space was sleek and masculine – glass, steel, clean lines, monochrome tones – and within twenty-four hours she had rearranged half of it. Not drastically. Just enough. Softer throws over the sofa. Plants in the corners. Candles that smell of cedar and lavender. Stacks of books encroaching on surfaces that once held nothing but minimalist decor.
He came through the door, dropped his bag on the floor, and just… stopped.
“There’s not enough space,” he had said finally, staring at the makeshift bookshelf she’s repurposed along an entire wall.
She can remember bristling at his words. “I can make it work.”
He had studied her for a long moment, expression unreadable. Then he had nodded once, decisive. “No. I’ll fix it.”
A week later he’d signed paperwork on a plot of land just outside the city.
She found out when he spreads blueprints across the kitchen island, eyes bright in a way she’s only seen on the ice. “I’m going to build you a house,” he had said, like it’s the most logical solution in the world. “With a proper library. Floor to ceiling shelves.”
She had blinked at him, overwhelmed.
But he was grinning, on a roll now. “And if you’re a good girl, I’ll get you a rolling ladder and everything.”
She had laughed then, because it sounds like a fairy tale, because this is the sort of grand, impossible gesture she writes into her novels and never quite believes could exist in real life. Yet there he was – still is – utterly serious, planning foundations and permits as though constructing her a dream is simply another objective to tick off.
“And,” he had added casually, “an ice rink in the garden.”
She still hasn’t dared to tell him about Brennan – the fragility of a brand new relationship not something she wants to taint with her history – but she’s had enough therapy over the years to know the issue isn’t the ice. That if anyone can help her push through the memories of ice skates and the thud of a body hitting the side of the rink, it’s the man in front of her.
Yes, she needs to tell him.
But not yet.
Their life still feels like they’re hiding in a bubble, but she knows it’s all coming to an end soon. That she should probably start to allow her Xaden box to mix with the other boxes that she has.
So that night, curled up in bed beside him, she takes a photo of her ring and sends it to the old group chat she shares with her university friends.
Rhiannon replies first, almost immediately. A cascade of heart emojis, voice notes shrieking support, a promise to visit and interrogate him thoroughly. Sawyer follows with a far more measured but no less warm congratulations, teasing her gently about finally finding someone worthy of her stubborn heart.
Ridoc says nothing.
For a week.
And then, at half past eleven on a Tuesday, her phone explodes.
Ridoc Gamlyn:
THE ONE WEEK I MUTE THE GC TO FINALLY GET SHIT DONE AND YOU GET MARRIED
MARRIED?????
VIOLET SORRENGAIL (WHO IS NOT VIOLET SORRENGAIL ANYMORE COS SHE FUCKING GOT MARRIED) YOU SPARE NO DETAILS!!!!
How big is it????
Also, does he have any hot hockey boy friends???
She laughs so hard she startles Xaden, who glances up from the sofa. She shows him the screen and he smirks, unrepentant.
“Should’ve told them sooner,” he says.
She knows he can’t talk, because he hasn’t told many people at all. Outside his cousin and his cousin’s partner, the circle is small to the point of nonexistence. He is private to the bone, protective of what’s his. Of her. The idea of publicising something so fragile and incandescent between them seems almost sacrilegious to him.
But still, he’d told her about his friends in the abstract – Garrick, the loyal yet mischievous one; Bodhi, steady and ambitious; Liam, chaotic sunshine – but he hadn’t made any grand announcements. Told her about the women that make them better – about Imogen, part of his life since Garrick had barged into hers and refused to leave, about Sloane, Liam’s sister who had always tagged along, but now considered his friend in his own rights.
And yet, he still hadn’t told them. Not properly.
And given the way Imogen’s eyebrow had arched at her name earlier, she suspects Garrick definitely doesn’t know. Xaden had described him as a gossip with zero shame. If Garrick knew, the entire league would know.
And now – now she is standing in a luxury box overlooking centre ice, the two women staring at her as though she has just casually announced she married a minor deity.
Sloane’s mouth is actually open. Imogen’s is not, but only just. There is a glint in her eye – sharp, assessing, not unkind but certainly not naïve.
“So,” Imogen says carefully, folding her arms. “You met and married in six weeks?”
Violet nods, fingers brushing the ring unconsciously. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
Sloane lets out a low whistle. “And the press didn’t even catch wind of it? Damn, girl. Good effort.”
Imogen snorts softly. “A low profile can be done, you know.”
Sloane tosses her hair dramatically. “Sure. But I don’t want to. Everyone loves me and Dain anyway.”
The name tugs at Violet’s memory like a thread pulled loose.
Dain.
She frowns slightly, searching her mental archive of sports headlines and player profiles she definitely did not deep-dive after discovering her husband was, in fact, a national icon.
“Wait,” she says slowly. “Dain? As in… Dain Aetos?”
The words leave her mouth before she can stop them, and the two women exchange another look – this one full of questions.
Below them, the puck drops, the game beginning in a violent blur of motion, and Violet realises with a strange, steady certainty that she has not just married Xaden Riorson.
She has married into an entire, complicated, glittering world.
Apparently one containing Dain Aetos.